2011 Predictions for Mobile Developers: The Growth, The Expectations, The Upsets
As I peer into my crystal ball I see a year of more growth coupled with higher expectations for mobile along with a few upsets along the way.
The Growth
If you didn’t rest over the holidays, don’t expect to relax anytime soon no matter where you fit in the industry. We will continue to see more devices, more demand for apps, and more demand for developers.
It was March when we declared 2010 The Year of the Mobile Developer. Developers were in hot demand and were finally being embraced publically and vocally as a key piece of the mobile ecosystem.
With that, we will continue to see huge growth in the number of mobile developers entering the scene. I do think we will see a combination of really newbie/webby developers, given the rise in toolssuch as AppMobi. As mobile has now become ‘mainstream’ we will also see more traditional software folks entering mobile. Expect more development tools and enablers (analytics, advertising etc) on the scene too. Choice becomes the biggest challenging for developers with the array of options.
We have already declared 2011 as the Year of APIs, especially network APIs. All the big cos are getting into this game aiming to put a stake in the ground so there is a lot of push happening from the infrastructure providers, coupled with the operators’ goals to squeeze more out of the network in regards to apps.
In addition to the GSMAs, OneAPI initiative, expect most of the major operators to have unviel their APIs ready for you to connect to in a restful way. Operator billing APIs are the most in demand, but expect to see a few other surprises too as the operators try and top their competitors. What we do need in this space are the smart business models so developers aren’t taken advantage of and can actually make some money. Expect some heated discussion here and some trial and error. Hopefully it won’t take too long, otherwise I expect developers to stay away in droves.
Higher Expectations
Our mobile industry has crossed the chasm into the lives of mainstream consumers. Now that they get ‘it’, the demand will only increase for more apps – ones that are of quality, have great usability and are personal (gimme what I want, even if I’m not quite sure what that is). This will lead to growth in discovery options in app stores and discovery sites (see ATT’s predictions for this as well). Fraud will be a trouble spot to deal with this year, both app and commerce, so expect more tools and emphasis on security.
I also expect to see some type of App Store ‘ submission standards’ or at least a lot of heated discussion on the topic. This is an area of increasing fragmentation and frustration with developers as the differences in images sizes, word counts, language, and categories is out of control and making app store placement a much longer process than truly necessary. (Check out our beta AppStore Place tool.)
The Upsets - Less BlackBerry, Less Android
There has to be a few of these in a year to make it more interesting!!
As mentioned, throughout the years our advice to developers was to follow the money, and they have been doing this, or at least following the promise of money. Here is where I see a big upset happening this year - developers abandoning BlackBerry and Android and heading back to iPhone. BlackBerry developers are getting frustrated with the technical challenges and the expense of working on that platform and Android developers are getting frustrated with not seeing any revenue. Nokia/QT and WP7 may get a few of them, but for now the iPhone remains the easy choice.
Stay tuned!
If you are interested to see how I made out from previous years, here are links to those predictions:
2010– a Thibaut/Caroline combo here. I declared: More Android, More BlackBerry, Less iPhone, More Innovation/More funding
2009 Tough economic times, Access the new open, Less US centric, yet more fragmentation...
2008 The Rise of Tools, M&A, and ‘Open’
2007 More fragmentation, newbie developers, Usability; and Location, Location, Location.